Mark Egan and Michelle Nichols
Reuters
10/13/2011
Anti-Wall Street protesters say the rich are getting richer while average Americans suffer, but the group that started it all may have benefited indirectly from the largesse of one of the world’s richest men.
There has been much speculation over who is financing the disparate protest, which has spread to cities across America and lasted nearly four weeks. One name that keeps coming up is investor George Soros, who in September debuted in the top 10 list of wealthiest Americans. Conservative critics contend the movement is a Trojan horse for a secret Soros agenda.
Soros and the protesters deny any connection. But Reuters did find indirect financial links between Soros and Adbusters, an anti-capitalist group in Canada which started the protests with an inventive marketing campaign aimed at sparking an Arab Spring type uprising against Wall Street. Moreover, Soros and the protesters share some ideological ground.
“I can understand their sentiment,” Soros told reporters last week at the United Nations about the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations, which are expected to spur solidarity marches globally on Saturday.
Pressed further for his views on the movement and the protesters, Soros refused to be drawn in. But conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh summed up the speculation when he told his listeners last week, “George Soros money is behind this.”
Soros, 81, is No. 7 on the Forbes 400 list with a fortune of $22 billion, which has ballooned in recent years as he deftly responded to financial market turmoil. He has pledged to give away all his wealth, half of it while he earns it and the rest when he dies.
Like the protesters, Soros is no fan of the 2008 bank bailouts and subsequent government purchase of the toxic sub-prime mortgage assets they amassed in the property bubble.
The protesters say the Wall Street bank bailouts in 2008 left banks enjoying huge profits while average Americans suffered under high unemployment and job insecurity with little help from Washington. They contend that the richest 1 percent of Americans have amassed vast fortunes while being taxed at a lower rate than most people…
…The Times of London, however, was not alone when it called the protests “Passionate but Pointless.”
Adbusters’ co-founder Lasn dismisses that, reeling off specific demands: a tax on the richest 1 percent, a tax on currency trades and a tax on all financial transactions.
“Down the road, there will be crystal clear demands coming out of this movement,” he said. “But this first phase of the movement is messy and leaderless and demandless.”
“I think it was perfect the way it happened.”…
Read the entire article at Reuters.
Related: Video at Blazing Cat Fur, Ezra Levant & Andrew Breitbart on the MSM’s Love of the #OccupyWallStreet Sham.
From HotAir.com, “…If you missed this revealing post at the Corner earlier today about how the commune downtown is managing to feed itself, make sure to make time for it. The money quote: ‘We don’t know where it comes from. It just appears, and we eat it.’ You’ll never see a summation of the entitlement mentality more twinkly than that.”
You should read the whole thing. And definitely watch the video about the hand gestures known as “twinkles.”
Yeah. I’m not giving up my second amendment rights for “twinkles.” Just sayin’.
Update: The Tamminator at Hillbuzz is with us on this. Hand Signals for Hippies
